After more than two months of strike, the bitter victory of the cleaning ladies of the Public Finances

On May 5, about twenty people gathered in a small Parisian square, singing "We won." Most of them were strikers, employed by the cleaning and maintenance company Maintenance Industrie. Low-skilled, often of foreign origin, and with sometimes shaky French, they were accompanied by a few supporters from the CGT and the Communist Party. Sheltered from the street by a long black gate, they celebrated the victory and the strike-ending protocol they had just obtained. They had obtained overtime from their employer— "An hour a day on average" —and, most importantly, the accompanying pay rise. Accustomed to cleaning the restrooms, offices, and hallways of the various sites of the Regional Directorate of Public Finances (DRFIP), these employees had not set foot there for more than two months.

If the Maintenance Industrie workers went on strike on February 24, it was to protest against the part-time work they are forced to do. "Every month, I only earn between 600 and 660 euros. It's not enough," says Djita, who has worked three hours a day in Public Finance for over twenty years. A mother of eight, this low income doesn't allow her to make ends meet. "We also complain about the quantity, " she says . "There are a lot of offices to clean. So many that I can't count them. So we organize ourselves. We have to find techniques. When we get home, we're so tired that we take paracetamol." " This is not the first time that cleaning staff in public bodies have gone on strike to denounce their working conditions: in 2020, the cleaners at the National Assembly , who were also poorly qualified and often of foreign origin, had already mobilized.

Since the beginning of the year, the strikers' exasperation and weariness have turned to cold anger. Civil servants, unionized with the CGT Public Finance Union, informed them that their working hours should have increased a year and a half ago. To clean the DRFIP premises, a service provider is chosen every three years. In November 2023, when the time comes to renew the contract, Maintenance Industrie replaces the previous company, but retains its staff. The workers change employers.

What they don't know—and what they won't know until January 2025—is that the contract won by Maintenance Industrie has doubled in value compared to the previous one, rising to €3.2 million. The figure will be—according to the CGT Public Finances union—given orally to staff representatives at the Regional Directorate of Public Finances by the Director of Real Estate and Logistics, David Marie. In exchange, the number of working hours is to increase. This is what the DRFIP explains in an internal document, dating from November 2023, which "Le Nouvel Obs" was able to consult. "The new cleaning contract [...] results in a 100% increase in cleaning hours and greater cleaning frequencies," the public body writes. "The hours were supposed to double, and the pay to follow. Nothing has doubled," says Fabrice Egalis, a member of the CGT Public Finances union. "At the same time, there were more administrative offices to clean, and the workload increased. Yet, the company took the money and gave nothing to the employees." Did the contract awarded in 2023 double the amount it had previously? Why wasn't the same true for employees' working hours? When contacted, the DRFIP and Maintenance Industrie did not respond to our questions.

"Nobody told us they had more money," explains Djita . "We work and we have nothing. We are like slaves to them. I am angry. They are thieves." "We are just useful to them to make a lot of money," adds Marie, who has worked on DRFIP sites since 2001. "They see us as trash. When I learned [that the contract amount had increased] , I screamed. It's not normal," says the woman who will celebrate her 56th birthday in a few days.

And once the strike began, the victory, now confirmed, was far from assured. The unions are leaving divided. Rather than with the CGT cleaning union, suspected of being too soft on employers, it is with the CGT Public Finance union that the Maintenance Industrie employees will exchange during the negotiations. This complicates the start of discussions. "The management of Maintenance Industrie waited until the end of the 6th week of the strike to receive a delegation of strikers and the boss waited until the 10th week to receive them," the CGT laments in a leaflet distributed a few days before the end of the negotiations.

While resentment toward their employer remained strong at the end of the negotiations, it was masked by broad smiles. The end-of-strike protocol, which "Le Nouvel Obs" had access to, noted that all strikers would receive increased working hours and a 2.1% increase in the collective wage scale. The strikers will also receive a bonus equal to 60% of the pay they did not receive during their mobilization. Some of their demands, however, were not met. "While the strikers had been demanding a bonus of 25 euros from the beginning for cleaning their clothing, management decided to pay 50 cents gross per month for full-time work," the CGT union explained in a press release . "The strikers refused this insult of a yellow patch."